Image as Evidence (SOC-SHU 234)

Images surround us; we think through images, they shape our words and our worlds. Images entertain us, define us, haunt us. For all these reasons, images present a persistent problem for the social sciences––namely how to tame the force of images to provide evidence about the various worlds in which we as humans live, and in doing so, to push our methods and analyses beyond solely discursive modes of working and thinking. Through key readings and films, Image as Evidence explores the ways social scientists and others have wrestled with the image as a form of evidence in order to make otherwise hidden and invisible phenomena visible, to grasp nature, the senses, cognition, human suffering, and the movement of time. The course explores how images can be manipulated, meanings twisted, and truth (despite much aversion to the word) unmade. The effort of scholars to constantly renew their relationships to images challenges us to “look” differently, and in looking, helps us to consider our ethical and critical relation to the world.